Terradepth Launches Absolute Ocean Data as a Service Platform to Map World’s Oceans

Terradepth Inc. today announced that it has launched its Absolute Ocean platform, a cloud-based, browser-accessble data management system for sharing and analyzing ocean data. The Austin, Texas-based company said Absolute Ocean, or AO, enables users to simultaneously manage existing customer-owned datasets and access subscription-based Terradepth data.

“What makes AO unique is its intuitive, immersive interface that enables visualization of high-resolution, vast geospatial datasets,” said Evan Martzial, Terradepth vice president of business development. “AO offers a robust solution for all aspects of geospatial data visualization, collaboration, analysis and management that will increase your operational efficiency while easily integrating into your existing workflows.”

Founded by two former U.S. Navy SEALs, Terradepth provides ocean data as a service with an autonomous maritime system that collects data at the edge. The company said its technology combines that data with a Web-based geospatial portal that enables users to manage underwater exploration and supports informed decision making.

Absolute Ocean manages different data types

Absolute Ocean supports an array of geospatial data types, including side-scan sonar, synthetic-aperture sonar, multi-beam bathymetry, satellite-derived bathymetry, lidar, magnetometer, 2D- and 3D-point cloud, and satellite imagery.

The AO library also includes a variety of tools. Terradepth said it has robust search features because it catalogs metadata associated with each data source. The company has developed machine-learning pipelines within Absolute Ocean to enable automatic target recognition.

In addition, AO’s ensemble deep-learning neural networks power sonar-data analysis. They empower predictions that are more accurate than those of individual models, claimed Terradepth. Platform users can display seafloor objects within respective interest regions.

“Our ocean data-as-a-service model will leverage our browser-based, cloud infrastructure to make accessible valuable and mission-critical data in a secure manner to internal stakeholders, as well as interested third parties,” Martzial said. “Our ODaaS platform will be able to provide on-demand ocean data access to enterprise business units, departments or customers, regardless of geography.”

Terradepth AO supports decision making

Terradepth said Absolute Ocean expedites mapping and data-management activities such as:

• Data management: Users can upload and share data broadly with the community, or they can limit access through private storage and control of permissions.
• Collaboration: Customers can efficiently share data, reports, custom dashboards and in-depth visualizations among teammates or with external partners.
• Geospatial and temporal searches: AO users can explore three-dimensional worldwide ocean datasets and narrow their results by location and time.
• Automatic target recognition: Artificial intelligence identifies objects of interest like pipelines, hazards, and other human-created debris.
• Rapid data quality assurance analysis: Users can quickly and easily execute such checks with four-dimensional data-visualization capabilities with multiple measurement and annotation tools.

AO is designed for survey teams spanning many industries, including ports and shallow-water hydrography, offshore renewable energy, subsea telecommunications, lidar, academia, and defense, said Terradepth.

“Our vision is to be the creators of a comprehensive, immersive and accurate virtual ocean to connect humanity with Earth’s last frontier,” noted Joe Wolfel, CEO of Terradepth.

The company said AO will help it continue its mission of "massively" increasing the availability of ocean data availability and improving interactions with that data to improve humanity's relationship with the oceans.